Often in data analytics, we need sophisticated plots to express our data. Matplotlib offers numerous plotting APIs natively, and is also the basis for a collection of third-party packages for additional functionalities, including:
- Seaborn: Provides simple plotting APIs, including some advanced plot types, with aesthetically appealing default styling
- HoloViews: Creates interactive plots with metadata annotation from bundled data
- Basemap/GeoPandas/Canopy: Maps data values to colors on geographical maps
We would learn some of the applications of these third-party packages in later chapters on advanced plotting.